A hugely exciting, newly created opportunity for an experienced and dynamic Master Blender has become available with an award-winning Distillery, to hone and develop their range of exciting, single malt scotch whiskies.
Due to continued year-on-year growth since inception, the team are looking for an ambitious, dynamic and passionate Master Blender to join the team. This person will be the gatekeeper of the spirit and has a wide range of responsibilities integrating with the Distillery Manager on spirit quality, being influential on NPD, managing inventory, filling strategy, product sampling, blending and sourcing of casks.
Main duties and responsibilities
- Working in conjunction with the Distillery Manager and the whisky-making team.
- Supporting the Distillery Manager with the operations of the distillery including the sourcing of raw materials, maturation, blending and bottling to deliver consistent quality across different batches.
- Developing new products. As a Master Blender you will understand the maturing inventory and be heavily involved in NPD. Working alongside the Commercial and Finance Teams to maximise the value and profitability of the spirit stock held by the distillery.
- Ensuring consistency of core SKUs. Hand selecting casks to ensure that each batch of our core whiskies is of a consistently high quality.
- Stock management. You will need to continually review and sample maturing stock in order to align with the long-term inventory plan.
- Management of the sampling and recording programme. You are responsible for the continual improvement of the spirit. This involves developing a program which samples and records the quality of the product produced.
- Brand promotion. A large part of your role will be to liaise with customers, consumers, the media, other distilleries and wholesalers to promote the distillery and its products.
- Staff training and development. You will be responsible for sharing knowledge, training the wider distillery team and providing relevant updates to Sales & Marketing especially around product launches.
- Hygiene and food safety standards maintenance. It is your responsibility to ensure staff are working to the highest standards at all times.
- To work as a Master Blender, you will need to demonstrate a substantial amount of work experience that reflects your ability to create high-quality spirits, manage staff, talk to the public, customers and suppliers and develop long term strategies linked to production.
This would ideally include the following:
- A minimum of 5 year commercial experience in the blending and management of premium Scotch Whisky brands.
- Proven track record of developing and launching award winning single malt whiskies
- Ideally educated to degree level in Chemistry, Engineering, Science or Brewing and Distilling
- A demonstrated ability to liaise with customers, suppliers, stakeholders and media
- A demonstrated ability to manage projects and to evaluate success
- A demonstrated ability to maintain product quality
Key Attributes
- Passion for and in-depth knowledge of Whisky Industry (ideally Scotch category)
- Ability to tell engaging stories and persuade potential consumers to try
- Commercially-minded, ambitious, hard-working and self-motivated individual
- Confident, influential and credible public speaker to well-informed whisky audiences
- Highly organised and able to priorities tasks to achieve multiple deadlines
- Comfortable with regular travel and working evenings and weekends
Benefits
- Opportunity to contribute and influence a fast-growing exciting whisky brand
- Huge part to play in developing Brands core range of single malt whiskies!
- Open, trusting, flexible and inclusive workplace
- Ongoing professional training in line with individual development plan
- Company contributory pension plan
- 28 days’ annual leave plus 4 statutory holidays (extra days’ holiday for each year of service)
- Generous staff discount on all products
- Quarterly Team Days / Evenings to celebrate continued growth trajectory